Sean McPhail and Colleen McPhail Staley sat together on the bench dedicated at Cobble Hill Golf Course last Sunday to their father, Bruce McPhail, who had managed the property for the Town of Elizabethtown.

ELIZABETHTOWN — A small crowd gathered at Cobble Hill Golf Course last Sunday to dedicate a solid granite bench to Bruce McPhail.

His sudden passing last year spurred a grassroots effort to forever remember the caretaker and craftsman whose legacy lives throughout the trails and markers here and on pathways and the lean-to at Blueberry Hill.

Bruce’s children spoke just a few words, in keeping with their father’s unassuming character.

“I would just like to thank everyone on behalf of our family,” Colleen said.

Organized by former Elizabethtown Supervisor Margaret Bartley and Cobble Hill’s Wednesday Women’s Golf League leader Gayle Alexander, the memorial raised more than the total $2,300 in funds needed to purchase, engrave and place the granite memorial.

Alexander said the remaining monies would be set aside and used to plant flowers around the bench each year, “so it is a focal point.”

Those gathered at the dedication ceremony were thrilled.

“Bruce was all about the flowers,” his brother-in-law said.

“Everyone gave to this, it was a community effort,” Alexander said, thanking course manager Don Ratliff who worked diligently this season on golf course greens and tees, rebuilding after last summer loss.

Ratliff also organized the McPhail Memorial Golf Tournament, which drew immense community support and raised over $1,300.

“We do have Bruce’s permission to put this bench here,” Bartley said, telling how she had envisioned the seat as she visited with Bruce in the golf course shed two winters ago.

“As we chatted, I told him someday neither of us would be here, but I hoped there would be a bench on the golf course with his name on it,” Bartley said in remarks prepared for the dedication.

“He thought about it a moment than, said, ‘Yes, I would like that.’”

As summer set in, he was gone.

Bartley brought the idea to Alexander, an avid golfer at the course, who launched the fundraising effort.

It was Alexander who suggested a wood seat might decay and metal may rust.

“Gayle says stone — granite,” Bartley relayed of the early planning.

The Women’s League sought final approval from the McPhail children, Alexander said, and then ordered the stone from Jay Heald.

“And so now Bruce is here with us. More than any other place, this is his home,” Bartley said.